Ice storm cripples Houston; Yasi the 2nd costliest Australian storm on record

A significant ice storm is in progress across southeast Texas, much of Louisiana, northern Mississippi, and southern Arkansas this morning, as the latest onslaught from the memorable winter of 2010 - 2011 continues. Houston, Texas recorded 1/10" - 1/4" inch of ice so far from the storm, resulting in a crippling of that city's transportation system. Numerous crashes have closed many area roads, and flights at local airports have been largely halted. Snowfalls of 1 - 3 inches will occur today along the northern edge of the ice storm region, in a swath from northeast Texas to western Kentucky. The storm will move into New England on Saturday, but will not bring heavy snow. The next chance for heavy snow occurs next Wednesday and Thursday, when the GFS model is predicting the formation of a winter storm capable of dropping a foot of snow in the Appalachians and inland areas of New England. However, it is too early to put much faith in this forecast.

Figure 1. Trees snapped off along the Chicago lakefront by winds from the Blizzard of 2011. Image credit: viewer uploaded photo from WGN.

Revisiting the Chicago blizzardThis week's blizzard in Chicago dropped 20.2" of snow on the city, Chicago's third-greatest snowstorm on record. But the tremendous winds that accompanied the blizzard--gusting to 61 mph at O'Hare Airport, and 70 mph at the Lakefront--made the storm Chicago's worst-ever blizzard as far as impacts on travel. Another remarkable feature of the storm were the intense thunderstorms that developed. According to an excellent write-up on the storm posted by the Chicago National Weather Service office, the Blizzard of 2011 had 63 lightning strikes, and several reports of hail. The most extraordinary hourly observation I've ever seen in a U.S. winter storm came at 9:51pm on February 1 at Chicago's Midway Field: A heavy thunderstorm with lightning, heavy snow, small hail or ice pellets, freezing fog, blowing snow, visibility 300 feet, a wind gust of 56 mph, and a temperature of 21°F. Welcome to the Midwest! Thanks go to meteorologist Steve Gregory for pointing this observation out to me.

Figure 2. Snow amounts from the February 1 - 3 blizzard of 2011 peaked at over 2 feet along the shore of Lake Michigan between Chicago and Milwaukee. Strong northeasterly winds pulled moist air off of the Lake in this region, allowing the "lake effect" to enhance the blizzard's snows in this region. Image credit: Chicago National Weather Service office.

Tropical Cyclone Yasi the second most damaging storm in Australia's historyTropical Cyclone Yasi has dissipated, but the damage totals from the storm make it Australia's second most expensive tropical cyclone of all-time, according to Tropical Storm Risk, Inc. The storm's $3.5 billion price tag is second only to Cyclone Tracy, which hit Darwin on Christmas Day 1974, doing $3.6 billion in damage (2011 dollars.) Yasi roared inland over Queensland, Australia at 12:30am local time on Thursday as a strengthening Category 4 storm with 155 mph winds and a 930 mb central pressure. The cyclone missed the most populous cities on the coast, Cairns and Townsville, but damaged up to 90% of the buildings in the small towns near where the eye passed--Tully, Mission Beach, and Cardwell. A storm surge of 5.4 meters (17.7 feet) was observed at Cardwell, and there was substantial surge damage at the coast. Fortunately, the storm surge hit near low tide, resulting in a storm tide--the height of the water above land--of about 4.5 meters, more than 2 meters below what would have occurred had Yasi hit at high tide. Yasi moved quickly enough across Queensland after landfall so that major flooding was limited to just three locations near the coast. Yasi's central pressure of 930 mb at landfall made the storm the most intense recorded in Queensland since at least 1918, and possibly since 1899. In 1918, there were two cyclones (at Mackay and Innisfail) with measured pressures in the upper 920s/low 930s, but it is quite plausible that the minimum central pressures were lower than that. The 1899 (Mahina/Bathurst Bay) cyclone had a measured pressure (ship near shore) of 914 mb.

Figure 3. The tide gauge at Carwell, Australia during passage of Tropical Cyclone Yasi recorded a 5.4 meter (17.7') storm surge (red line). Since the surge came near low tide, the storm tide--the height of the surge above mean water--was only 4.5 meters (blue line). The storm tide would have been more than 2 meters higher had Yasi hit at high tide, and the damage from coastal flooding would have been huge. The green line shows the expected water levels at Cardwell due to the tide. Image credit: Queensland government.

Quoting pottery:.... also, I find that the "blog index" page is pretty useless, now that it does not highlight the blogs that I have recently visited.I like to check a couple of Members blogs when I come on, but I have to go looking for them, instead of them jumping out at me.Small thing, but I found it good in the past, poor in the present.

The reason why you hate the present Wunderground is because you are too familiar with the old one.

Got to give credit where credit is due. He did get it right in 2007 when he said it was going to rain in Minneapolis....and it did.

I have to say Bastardi was off a bit with his prediction of 6 or 7 landfalling tropical cyclones in the U.S. last season..I still believe he is a good meteorologist..To me, trying to predict the number of hurricanes that will make landfall is like trying to predict when and where an earthquake will strike...Its difficult to do.

Quoting pottery:I see that the WunderPoll results are showing that 54% have voted that the new format is "great" or "good".46% are not too happy.Not good numbers, for a project that took 2 years to do, IMO.I hope that they can get it right before June 1.

quote from your link,"The Canadian winter will be as harsh as last year's was gentle," Bastardi said”

and according to Bob Henson,

“What really jumps out, though, is a blob of green, yellow, orange, and red covering a major swath of northern and eastern Canada. The largest anomalies here exceed 21°C (37.8°F) above average, which are very large values to be sustained for an entire month”

quote from your link,"The Canadian winter will be as harsh as last year's was gentle," Bastardi said”

and according to Bob Henson,

“What really jumps out, though, is a blob of green, yellow, orange, and red covering a major swath of northern and eastern Canada. The largest anomalies here exceed 21°C (37.8°F) above average, which are very large values to be sustained for an entire month”

Quoting pottery:.... also, I find that the "blog index" page is pretty useless, now that it does not highlight the blogs that I have recently visited.I like to check a couple of Members blogs when I come on, but I have to go looking for them, instead of them jumping out at me.Small thing, but I found it good in the past, poor in the present.

A record low temperature of 28 degrees was set at Galveston yesterday. This ties the old record of 28 degrees set in 1917 and 1912. The minimum temperature in Galveston has fallen below 30 degrees four out of the first five days of the month. The normal low temperature is 50 degrees.

Update... infrared satellite imagery revealed low clouds over south central coastal waters. In addition...increased cloud cover this afternoon into this evening. Surface map showed a 1020mb high over North Florida with a light south flow over Louisiana and Mississippi. Dewpoints have already increased into the 40s by 11 am this morning. Surface low was noted over north central Louisiana. Equivalent potential temperature profiles showed a slight decrease with height across the coastal waters and south of Lake Pontchartrain late tonight. As a result...this slight instability with moisture and an approaching short wave has prompted our office and Storm Prediction Center to insert isolated thunder for late tonight for this area. Otherwise...morning package is on track.

Previous discussion... /issued 420 am CST sun Feb 6 2011/

Short term... a relatively mild Sunday in store as cold air mass over the region moderates under full sun today. A rapid transition to cloudy skies and steady rainfall developing overnight from the coast northward in response to clipper system dropping out of northern branch flow to sharpen a trough over the lower Mississippi Valley. This will cause deep dynamic cooling as reflected in very sharp thermal trough swinging across the area Monday morning. GFS shows a 41 cycle vorticity maximum moving along the la coast into 18z Monday which is a product of some stratospheric intrusion of 4 to 6 pvu of equivalent potential vorticity dropping to the 500 mb level. This is a good indicator for frequent strong gusts with the passage of this feature due to downward momentum transport under an increasingly drier column. The European model (ecmwf) and NAM show a similar structure but not quite as strong with the vorticity maximum...around 33 cycles...which still supports near gale force gusts for a short duration Monday. The GFS is also hinting at some snow flurry potential mainly over southwest Mississippi on the back side of the vorticity feature. The model soundings do not really indicate much support for snow...clearly not from any top-down processes...but dynamic forcing and turbulent mixing in the snow seeding layer may cause an unorthodox shot at some flurries under very shallow cumuli for a brief while late Monday morning or early afternoon. Iffy confidence for this scenario and no anticipated impacts for this occurrence...will forego any mention at this time and handle with nowcasts in the event some flurries do form and fall. The greater impact should be the gustiness on Monday.

I'm keeping both sights up too, visuals that on one are not on the other....backwards from yesterday, Lawdy, Lawdy....and we've got some more wintry stuff coming back into the deep south late tonight....so they say...;O

.... also, I find that the "blog index" page is pretty useless, now that it does not highlight the blogs that I have recently visited.I like to check a couple of Members blogs when I come on, but I have to go looking for them, instead of them jumping out at me.Small thing, but I found it good in the past, poor in the present.

Quoting BahaHurican:pot, it's still too "buggy" to me. Lots of little annoying things. I like the look, and definitely enjoy the faster download, but what's the use of that if in the end I can't read what I want to read? See what I need to see? I haven't tried to post any pics as yet....

Here's the latest Fiji surface analysis:

Yeah, I agree.I am stuck on the old one for now.I cannot deal with the soft lettering on the new, for one thing..

pot, it's still too "buggy" to me. Lots of little annoying things. I like the look, and definitely enjoy the faster download, but what's the use of that if in the end I can't read what I want to read? See what I need to see? I haven't tried to post any pics as yet....

Quoting pottery:I see that the WunderPoll results are showing that 54% have voted that the new format is "great" or "good".46% are not too happy.Not good numbers, for a project that took 2 years to do, IMO.I hope that they can get it right before June 1.

If it took them 2 years to create this mess, just think if they had had 3 years.

I see that the WunderPoll results are showing that 54% have voted that the new format is "great" or "good".46% are not too happy.Not good numbers, for a project that took 2 years to do, IMO.I hope that they can get it right before June 1.

Quoting sailingallover:SST TCHP the topic of the day...The Trades are finally building with a strong atlantic H forecast the next week. They have been weak most of the winter as the troughs from the storms over CONUS have eroded the ABH as fast as it develops. Right now most of the MDR is covered with 25-30+knt wind. We are getting low level showers from the heat and moisture the Atlantic is shedding every few hours here in the islands.So how much heat gets released and how much warmer water gets blow west, right now it is all piled up in the Cape Verdes area, in the next 2 months is really going to affect the season later.

The GFS has the ABH strong for the next http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod/analysis/carib/gfs/06/images/gfs_ten_162l.gif

The Columbian Low and ITCZ is forecast to be strong which will help tighten the gradient and make for stronger winds=more heat loss.

So how this plays out is yet to be seen..

Winds have increased here, easterly at 22 mph with higher gusts.Swell warnings to 3-4 meters in open waters for the next few days as well.Temp 88F currentlyHumidity 58% currentlyIt sure feels like a DrySeason day. Some WV out in the Atl along the ITCZ, but not much.Real nice weather, actually.

COLOMBO: At least 14 people were killed and over one million affected by fresh floods across Sri Lanka , inundating homes, roads and agricultural land for the second time within a month.

A total of 1053,499 have been affected due to floods in several parts of the country, the Disaster Management Centre said today.

A similar number of persons were affected and 300,000 left homeless in the flooding early last month which also claimed at least 43 lives, prompting the United Nations to make a global appeal to raise USD 51 million as an emergency fund for flood victims.

The latest flooding has affected almost the same areas devastated by the earlier flooding, displacing 237,000 people.

The displaced people have been accommodated at 653 temporarily camps set up in high lands in the flood affected areas.

Schools in eastern province and part of the northern province have been closed till Wednesday next week, officials said.

Around 40 naval units and at least 7 military helicopters have been deployed to assist flood victims in northern and eastern province, areas where badly affected by the floods this time.

Officials have asked the public to refrain from visiting UNESCO heritage city of Anuradhapura as roads are damaged and made inaccessible by floods.

It's not "bashing" or "hating" to hold a forecaster's feet to the fire, especially one who couldn't do much worse by flipping a coin. Heck, the NWS is constantly being "bashed" by lots of people--most vociferously by Bastardi himself.

The main point to keep in mind is this: if Bastardi can't be trusted to make a good weather forecast--something he's trained to do--why would anyone trust him to make long-term predictions about climate--something for which he is most definitely not trained?

Actually, Karl did much more damage that Igor and Tomas combined. 5.6 billion in damages.

Well, I was going by the numbers in the TCR, which listed damage at $206 million. I see the $5.6 billion figure on Wikipedia, but I'm not sure where it came from; I imagine that came from over-inflated preliminary numbers. (I know a rule of thumb for figuring actula damage is to double insurance damage estimates, but even that would still only take it to $412 million, less than 7% of the higher number. Hmmm...)

Having said that, I still believe Karl will be one of the three names retired this year, with Tomas and Igor being the other two.

Quoting islander101010:more heavy rain sri lanka cant get a break.. probally posted before but bastardi is in the news again he's showing his age too many failed forecast http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/45220/bastardi-three-of-next-five-wi-1.asp

00z ECMWF depicts Zaka moving towards the west-southwest over the next day or so, before turning towards the south-southwest into a weakness in the mid-level ridge located to the south. The system will likely become extratropical and be swept off to the southeast before posing a threat to New Zealand.

In other news, the 00z ECMWF also depicts the development of yet another rather large and powerful tropical cyclone in the Australia region. Luckily, this one is forecast to develop over the southwestern Indian Ocean, near northwestern Western Australia, and move off towards the west or west-southwest before dissipating due to very dry air and relatively hostile upper level conditions over the open waters of the Indian ocean.

Quoting Neapolitan:I did a pretty lengthy comment on Karl's TCR when it came out on Wednesday (and on Nicole's, which was released on Monday). That's all but two: Tomas and Igor--the two storms with both the most complex paths and the greatest damage. Just a week or two more, I'm sure...

Beautiful here in Naples; yet another 80-degree day is in the works (and one more tomorrow). I took the boat down the waterway and out into the Gulf yesterday afternoon; it was overcast, but the sun broke from beneath the shelf about five minutes before it set, setting the entire sky ablaze. That, some good friends, a nice breeze blowing the palm trees around, and a couple of dolphins feasting next to us in the inlet all made for a nice sunset. There are times I don't like it here--but yesterday wasn't one of them. ;-)

Actually, Karl did much more damage that Igor and Tomas combined. 5.6 billion in damages.

more heavy rain sri lanka cant get a break.. probally posted before but bastardi is in the news again he's showing his age too many failed forecast http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/45220/bastardi-three-of-next-five-wi-1.asp